The present invention relates generally to vehicle seating systems and more particularly to a vehicle seating system with a chuck (tilt) reducing apparatus.
Modernly, it has become highly desirable to provide vehicles such as mini-vans, trucks, sport-utility vehicles and station wagons, that have rearwardly-situated seating systems that may be selectively removed by the vehicle owner to permit the cargo-carrying capacity of the vehicle to be increased. While the incorporation of removable seats into a vehicle has become somewhat routine, several problems have been encountered which heretofore have not been sufficiently addressed by the known art.
One such problem concerns the integration of the seat mounting members, typically cylindrical pins, into the vehicle. With the known seating systems, it is highly desirable that the seat mounting members be coupled to the vehicle floor structure in a precise relationship along three axes (i.e., the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, the lateral axis of the vehicle and the axis normal to ground) relative to a predetermined datum point. Unfortunately, variation in the fabrication of the vehicle causes the relationship of the seat mounting members to vary from vehicle to vehicle, particularly along the axis that is normal to the ground.
Prior seating systems typically compensated for the variation in the vertical height of the seat mounting members through an attachment mechanism system that would generate sufficient clamping force between the mounting members and the seat mounting structure to prevent the seating system from tipping about one of the seat mounting members. This approach, however, has several drawbacks.
In particular, these seating systems tend to be relatively heavy due so as to provide the requisite strength that is necessary to generate the clamping force that is necessary to prevent the seat mounting structure from tipping on the seat mounting members. As these seating systems tended to be relatively heavy, they are relatively more difficult for vehicle owners to install to and remove from the vehicle.
Another drawback concerns the attachment mechanism systems that were employed by these systems and the ease with which they were deployed to prevent the vehicle seating system from tipping. Typically, relatively short lever arms were employed by these attachment mechanisms to generate the clamping force that was necessary for securing the seat mounting structure to the mounting members and to prevent tipping. While the short lever arms were convenient and easily packaged within the vehicle and seating system, they can be difficult to manipulate depending upon the strength of the operator since the rate with which they multiply an input manipulating force tends to be rather small.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for a seating system that is relatively more tolerant of the positional relationship of the seat mounting members. There also remains a need in the art for a seating system that can be more easily manipulated to control tipping.
In one preferred form, the present invention provides a seating system for a vehicle having a vehicle floor. The seating system includes a mounting member and a frame assembly. The mounting member is configured to be fixedly coupled to the vehicle floor. The frame assembly has a mounting structure with a mounting leg, an isolator and a compression lever. The mounting leg has a slotted aperture into which a portion of the mounting member is disposed. The isolator is coupled to one of the mounting leg and the compression lever. The compression lever is pivotably mounted to the mounting structure such that rotation of the compression lever in a first rotational direction positions the isolator in an engaged condition wherein at least a portion of the isolator is compressed against the mounting member. Rotation of the compression lever in a second rotational direction positions the isolator in a disengaged condition wherein the isolator is disengaged from the mounting member.